groes, who, with his own family and many others, attend from the neighbourhood. The late robber himself, I am happy to state, manifests a real change of life and heart, to the truth of which his master bears a pleasing testimony. He has been received as a scholar into our Sunday-school. Our excellent governor, with his secretary and a member of the council, lately visited the Sunday-school, and expressed his high satisfaction with the improvement of the children."

part of education. Indeed, I must admit your Correspondent's correctness, in saying, that the Report alluded to furnishes no decisive evidence of any slave-children being taught to read, though it is made probable that in a few instances they are so. But we have seen that religious instruction, by catechizing and preaching, is carried on to a considerable extent among the Negro Slaves, and that with apparent benefit. From the opinion, therefore, that among these degraded people Missionary labours are almost useless, Mr. Cooper must pardon me when I say that I still feel some ground for dissent.

EUELPIS.

But your correspondent seems to think that all these instructions can do the Negroes but little real good, as long as they remain in slavery. He will pardon me for saying that I cannot conceive this. Such is the nature of Christian truth, that if it be but received with any degree of seriousness and affection, I think it must, to a moral certainty, operate most beneficially both on the heart and the understanding, and through them on the whole social behaviour. And this appears, from the statements of the Missionaries, to be realized in fact. Whether the reception of religion will tend to produce any insurrectionary movements among the Negroes, I feel unable to judge with absolute confidence; but it appears to me, that religion represses such movements by much stronger motives than it incites them, nor am I aware that there are any facts on record in evidence of such a danger. Moreover, among the Planters themselves, a contrary opinion seems to be gaining ground..

With respect to the instruction of the Negroes in the art of reading, it is certainly a more questionable measure, and unless it goes hand in hand with a progressive emancipation, may have dangerous tendencies. Reading, however, is not absolutely necessary, either to life or godliness: it is but a modern blessing in the world, since before the art of printing, it was probably never enjoyed by the mass of mankind, whether bond or free. But even from this acquirement, when attained in conjunction with religious instruction and discipline, I think there must be more to be hoped than to be feared. More jealousy, however, exists on this point among the Planters, and consequently, a comparatively limited number of slave-children receive this

GLEANINGS; OR, SELECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE OF GENERAL READING.

No. CCCCI. Botanical Heaven.

It is amusing to see how men associate their favourite pursuits with their religious expectations. In this they sometimes fall into the ludicrous. The Botanic Garden, for instance, at Leyden, contains a bust of Clusius, one of its founders and benefactors, on which is the following inscription:

Non potuit plures htc quærere Clusius herbas,

Ergo novas campis quærit in Elysiis, which may be thus plainly Englished,

New plants to Clusius, Earth no longer yields,

He goes to botanize in the Elysian fields.

the Horticultural Tour by a Deputation This compliment (says the Editor of from the Edinburgh Horticultural Society, an interesting and valuable 8vo.) has a parallel in one paid by the work, just published in one volume, author of the "Gramina Britannica" to the herborizing zeal of the late Mr. Sole, of Bath: If our spirits, after their escape from this prison of clay, continue any attachments to what engaged them on earth," surely, conbotanical fervour, Sole is now " cludes the amiable Author, rapt in simpling in celestial fields !"

Crowded with vice and virtue-with the excess

Of vice and virtue. Heroes have been here,

Who sit on heavenly summits now, and walk

In the free fields of bliss. I will not ask

What crimes have crowded here; for men are wont

To err most strangely when they talk of crime:

The vilest go unscourged; but I have

seen

More valour and more truth in these black cells

Than ever honoured many a mighty one Whom million slaves have worshiped. I'll look round

And moralize, and for a moment chase The memory of wife and childrenthoughts

Too bitter for a prisoner, and for one Whose prison is not in his father land. The cold walls on one side were mouldered o'er,

And the damp sweat exuded. Stains of blood

Were sprinkled on the other filth of years Covered the floor. There was a sickening stench,

Nauseous as the plague's breath. The bars, the bolts Seemed made for giants; and the heavy keys

Were shaken, as with a malevolent joy, By the unhearted keeper. Vermin tribes

Luxuriated: it was a palace to them.
I imaged to myself the various minds
That had left transcripts on these pri-
son-walls;

But some had been erased, as if rebuke Had cried "Shame" to the conscience; some were left

Broken, or finished tremblingly. Remorse,

Or fear, or levity, had checked the hand; Yet like Belshazzar's silent warning, they

Spoke loud as thunder. One had written there,

1

"Take ye my life who took my hope away." Another told his history: "I was born In Brabant and was happy: I had filled

drawn

Rude boughs of intertwining olive. One Had sketched a drooping ash, bent o'er a stream,

And hung gold weights upon its branches: "Men Are bowed by circumstance." "Twas eloquent :

I felt it, and I looked again; I saw There was an altar hid behind the tree, On which a fire was burning. "Twas a dream "Man is

Of the pure days of youth. trained

To perfect wisdom but by perfect woeThou must be more unfortunate!" How oft

Have I, with listening ear and busy sense,

Waited upon your moralizers! Come, Classical proud one! Come and show a page In all thy catalogue, so rich in lore, As this cold wall. There were two trembling lines From one just hurrying to the scaffold:

"I

Now end my course and perish. It

were sweet

To die in England!" Carved upon the floor,

There were most strange and hieroglyphic forms,

Which spoke of British captains-British crews,

Captured and there confined.

humorous jests

Some

2

Were blended-had my mind been

tuned to mirth.

I was not mournful-I could not be

gay.

I heaved no sigh-I could awake no smile:

Wife, children-perhaps. I'll muse no

more. Alas! I am a prisoner.